Top graduates for 'sink' schools

The brightest graduates will be paid to teach in London's roughest schools for two years before pursuing alternative careers, under a radical scheme backed by the Government and business.

Students at the top 20 universities, including Oxford, Cambridge and Edinburgh, will be encouraged to go into the inner-city classrooms after they graduate as part of their preparation for working life.

The corporate sponsors of the project will offer to hire them on a fast-track promotion scheme when they finish their two-year teaching stint.

The project, Teach for London, has been set up by the Prince of Wales's charity Business in the Community and the business organisation London First. The Government has promised financial and practical support, and ministers hope to set up similar schemes in other cities if it works.

The idea is based on Teach for America, which is credited by more than 90 per cent of head teachers taking part as having a positive effect on pupils.

It is vastly over-subscribed. Seven per cent of Yale graduates applied to take part this year, and around 40 per cent of the graduates who take part end up staying in schools.

Third-year students will be recruited for Teach for London in autumn, then sent on an intensive eight-week training course after they graduate the following summer, before being parachuted straight into the classroom in September next year. Their salaries will be the same as other trainee teachers.

Rona Kiley, the wife of Bob Kiley, the American hired by Ken Livingstone as London's Transport Commissioner, is helping to run the project.

"One of the major problems is recruitment of teachers in these most challenging schools," she said yesterday. "We hope to attract really top-quality students by linking closely with the business community. This is not just a route into teaching, this is a route into a very challenging job.

"They are already top graduates who are increasing their value to business. Businesses see them as people who will put themselves on the line in a very difficult way. They know they will learn communications skills, fortitude, courage."

Citigroup, Canary Wharf and the Corporation of London are among the companies which have already agreed to sponsor the scheme.

Some teachers will resent the decision to allow high-flying graduates to short-circuit the normal training procedures. They could also criticise the fact that the participants will abandon their pupils for more highly paid careers after two years.

However, teaching unions are broadly supportive of the proposals. Local education authorities have also told Teach for London that they would be happy to take the graduates on short-term contracts because many teachers leave the capital's schools after a similar period in any case.

The plan follows a report produced by the management consultants McKinsey and Co which found that pupils in London were suffering because of the difficulty in attracting high-quality staff, while graduates were keen on short-term teaching stints only.